Government has lost sight of the importance of farming to New Zealand’s wider economy and the fact we actually need food to survive. Farmers are now a threatened species except foresters and manuka conversions for honey. Funnily enough, Government legislation is now the biggest risk to farming even compared to natural disasters.

Provincial Local Government has also lost sight of their heavy reliance on the farming economy as they focus on towns and services for people. There will be few people and towns if our farmers disappear – we are too reliant on the services and products they buy, the products they supply for further manufacture and the profits they spend. We fool ourselves if we think art galleries, museums, tourists, events and niche manufacturers keep our provincial towns alive.

Laws and taxes are being passed by Wellington based politicians who do not understand nor think beyond the growing urban populations. The Carbon Credits scheme managed by the government is making forestry far more profitable than any other farming industry. A new tax on animal emissions adds to growing costs on farm. Government approvals for sale of land to overseas forestry firms has accelerated, not reduced and its harder and harder to get water rights approvals for not only stock but also cropping creating growing uncertainty and risk for farmers.

Overdone fencing and riparian planting requirements of anything that might possibly be considered a waterway, tighter regulations on private drinking water schemes, tighter Health & Safety laws, tighter regulations on chicken & egg farms and now the possibility of a 5 times increase in firearms licence fees will make pest control and recreational shooting too expensive for most except the most frequent shooters.

Traditionally the biggest risk to farmers was drought, flood and pestilence plus low demand for their products. Those risks continue but this Government wants to save the planet by planting NZ in trees.

New Zealand is facing a crisis of identity and I see a bleak future for a our way of life without a radical and urgent U-turn by Government.